Another comma inquiry 9

[KornGeek]

I'm having a disagreement with some coworkers about the best way to punctuate the following sentence (all commas removed to eliminate bias):

Your colleague John Smith from Some Fictional Company thought you would find this useful.

Four of us have each put commas in different places, so I thought I'd present this to the forum. Thanks.

 

[strongm]

>few people in England could use punctuation correctly- mostly they will not use it at all

I'm not sure what part of England your Englishman camne from, or what sort of people he mixed with, but the latter part of this claim isn't (generally) true in my experience of being English and living in England for most of my life.

I'd even argue with the first claim as well

 

[SantaMufasa]

Try to guess where I live!

I'll guess, um, uh, Slovenia.

Mufasa
(aka Dave of Sandy, Utah, USA)
[I provide low-cost, remote Database Administration services: www.dasages.com]
“Beware of those that seek to protect you from harm or risk. The cost will be your freedoms and your liberty.”

 

[MichaelHooker]

>>few people in England could use punctuation correctly- mostly they will not use it at all

We don't expect to see people making sweeping claims about other people based on their nationality or location, do we? It's not very nice and causes offence, even if attributed to "a friend". I'm English, have lived here all my life (going on 60 years) and have been dealing with written correspondence from the general public for nearly 40 years.

A large proportion of our population has difficulties with, for example, the apostrophe; many are not aware of the finer points of punctuation which simply do not matter to them. But the fact remains that they make the attempt to use the apostrophe, often unnecessarily. They do use general punctuation. My e-mail folder proves it if you want evidence. The statement quoted above is both insulting and untrue. Don't listen to that "friend", he is just plain wrong.

Mike

 

[dixiematic]

to santaMusafa,

(off topic)

Ja.
M777182

 

[manhunter2826]

Returning to the initial and appropriate usage of a comma the following, I think, demonstrates an uncomplicated (straightforward?) and proper use of a comma. It's taken from a broadsheet review (TV choice, you know of the type) of a TV program. The first is a review of the program during the weekend listings of a following week's schedules. The second is the exact same review, but on the actual day of the program's showing (basically, they just copy and paste), and the sub-editor has placed the comma where indeed it should have been (in the first). I have only part-quoted the appropriate bit.

FIRST
"Lofty ambitions indeed, and on the evidence of the series opener, way off the mark."

SECOND
"Lofty ambitions indeed and, on the evidence of the series opener, way off the mark."

 

[Annihilannic]

I came across this very poor use of commas while distracted by a link from the learnt vs. learned thread:

http://www.askoxford.com/asktheexperts/faq/aboutwords/medial?view=uk

A very interesting site!

Annihilannic.